Petraeus: Syria May Slow Iraq Fighters

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, gestures during a news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, April 26, 2007. (AP Photo/Heesoon Yim) (Heesoon Yim - AP)

WASHINGTON -- There are early indications that Syria is trying to make it more difficult for foreign fighters to cross its border into Iraq to aid insurgents, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said Friday.

"There is some possibility that Syria may have taken some actions to make it tougher for these foreign fighters to move through," Gen. David Petraeus said in an Associated Press interview at the Pentagon.

He stressed that it was too early to say for certain that Syria was now heeding long-standing U.S. calls to impede the movement of foreign fighters, who U.S. officials say are involved in some of the more spectacular attacks in Iraq.

"They may be doing more than they certainly have in the past, which is not much, because they were not doing much in the past," Petraeus added. He said it was unclear what may be motivating Syria to be more helpful.

The Bush administration has accused Syria's leaders of allowing terrorists to use their country as a staging area for fighters, money and weapons moving into Iraq since the start of the war. Earlier this month, President Bush criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria, a trip Bush said could only encourage a state sponsor of terrorism.

Petraeus said Syria may have its own reasons for limiting al-Qaida's access through Syrian borders.

"Syria has to worry in the long run that their soil does not become used by al-Qaida," he said. "They have to worry at what al-Qaida could do to them and their country. What al-Qaida wants, if you believe al-Qaida, is something very different from what the Syrian population certainly wants."

Petraeus and other U.S. officials also have complained about Iranian influence in Iraq, including Iranian supplies of arms to insurgent groups.

At the end of a week in Washington in which he briefed members of Congress and made numerous public appearances to describe a mixed picture of progress and setbacks in Iraq, Petraeus also said in the AP interview that the U.S. military has not developed a specific plan for the possibility of an abrupt withdrawal.

"I'm not aware of a contingency plan for sort of pulling everybody out in haste, or something like that," the general said. "We're not only reasonably well positioned but well practiced to move vast amounts of equipment, materiel and people in and out of that country.

"But if you are going to focus planning effort on something, I think you generally focus on those contingencies that are most likely and that's not one I would put high on the list of likelihood."

Brett McGurk, Iraq director for the White House's National Security Council, said Friday in an interview on C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program to air Sunday that the administration is not thinking in terms of a backup plan for its current strategy, which was put in place by Bush in January.